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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22727938">they call this paper love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tentaclemonster/pseuds/tentaclemonster'>tentaclemonster</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Night Film - Marisha Pessl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Age Difference, F/M, Older Man/Younger Woman, Post-Canon, Reunited and It Feels So Good</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:13:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,812</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22727938</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tentaclemonster/pseuds/tentaclemonster</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes a year after the Cordova story is wrapped up before Scott finally starts living his life again.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nora Halliday/Scott McGrath</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>they call this paper love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>After the entire Cordova ordeal was finally done – the man met and interviewed, the story about him and Ashley and the gnarled and twisting roots of their family written and published, the expected splash made, and the media frenzy over it that ensued afterwords dealt with – Scott had this idea in his head that he’d feel, well, </span>
  <em>
    <span>relieved</span>
  </em>
  <span> at having it all over with. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d written what the </span>
  <em>
    <span>New York Times</span>
  </em>
  <span> called “his best work yet”. He’d been “vindicated and then some” as a journalist according to </span>
  <em>
    <span>NPR</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He’d had an experience so like what everyone who met Cordova had – gone through a Wonderland sort of hell to come out the other side to a place that was the same but all new and interesting and sharp in all the hidden places that were just waiting to be explored. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He had a future, a career, a life to look forward to (filled with plenty of money from his best selling book to enjoy it with, a fact that certainly didn’t hurt a bit).</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scott should have been relieved and maybe, deep down, he was, but mostly all he felt was exhausted. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He guessed a month of frenzied running around the media circuit answering all the same questions about Cordova and deflecting all the questions he felt he couldn’t (wouldn’t, shouldn’t) answer would do that to a guy. But now that month was up, Cordova only a scar on Scott’s skin – always there but sutured up and scabbed over, fading by the day – and what Scott felt was less relief and more tired, more wired </span>
  <em>
    <span>under</span>
  </em>
  <span> that tiredness, like he’d crashed his car into the trees and was amped up on adrenaline figuring out which direction to take off in on foot.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was figuring out that direction, figuring out what his next story should be, that was a source for his exhaustion as much as his post-Cordova hangover was. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There were other stories, of course, plenty of things he could write about next. The world continued to spin and secrets continued to breed like bed bugs, lying in wait for the person who would eventually unearth their hidden filth deep in the seams of the soiled, broken down mattress that was society, and there were papers and websites and individuals all chomping at the bit to offer Scott a lead, something they thought he could take and turn into another Cordova book for the profit and acclaim of everyone involved in writing and publishing it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scott did not lack for </span>
  <em>
    <span>options </span>
  </em>
  <span>in what to write, he only lacked in interest for any one particular option.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After Cordova, after the thrill of that investigation, Scott wanted something that would grip his focus in its claws just as tightly. He wanted a story he could sink into, that he could follow down another rabbit hole that was so gripping he couldn’t bare to think of looking around to find the exit sign glowing red and threatening in the darkness. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So Scott fielded through the emails proposing he look into this subject or that one, hoping to find something that would grab him by the hair and say </span>
  <em>
    <span>me me pick me</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but so far he had nothing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scott had yet to find that story and he was getting nervous that such a story didn’t exist, that he’d have to settle for something his interest wasn’t really in, and that – the most daunting possibility of all – there would never be anything close to the Cordova story again, that he would spend the rest of his career investigating and writing about things that always fell short.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Everyone always talked about how various people throughout history hunted their own white whales, after all, but no one ever talked about what happened </span>
  <em>
    <span>after</span>
  </em>
  <span> they found them – after the whale had been spotted and harpooned, its body pulled from the ocean, the photos taken and applause given, meat pulled from the bone and fat turned to candles, the rest of it decomposing away until all you had was the memory of the kill and how long you spent running towards that end, chasing it down with desperation. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After you found your white whale, what did you do next? What could ever come close to satisfying someone who had done the impossible, whose obsession had borne fruit that had dutifully been consumed only to find that after awhile they were still hungry again afterwards? The problem with doing </span>
  <em>
    <span>the best you’d ever done</span>
  </em>
  <span> was that doing better became all the more elusive. Sometimes you climbed a mountain and found there was a stairway to heaven at the top, sometimes you climbed it and found there was nowhere else to go but back to the bottom.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scott had climbed his mountain and still hadn’t found out where to go from there, whether going </span>
  <em>
    <span>up</span>
  </em>
  <span> was even an option or if – like so many other journalists who’d written the story of their lives – he would have to settle for going back down to slimmer, less juicy pickings that kept his starvation abated but never quite satisfied his hunger.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In the meantime, though, Scott </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> found something. Something he’d thought was as elusive as a new story, as done and gone from his life as Cordova was – a scar, a memory, but not a present affliction or one that would ever ail him again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He found Nora Halliday.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>/----------------/</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It was the exhaustion that drove Scott out of his place at an hour of the morning that he rarely saw willingly. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’d woken up while it was still dark out, the red light of his digital clock dutifully glowing at an awfully early </span>
  <em>
    <span>4:52 a.m.</span>
  </em>
  <span> and the rain pittering pathetically against his darkened bedroom window. Scott laid there watching the 52 slowly click towards 53, 54, 55, 56 trying to will himself to go back to sleep to no avail, and finally gave up on the notion entirely when the minutes on the clock turned over to 59. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He swung his legs out of bed, made his way to the living room where he turned on a lamp and – after a quick glance at Septimus, who was still sleeping in his cage dreaming bird dreams, the lucky bastard – grabbed his laptop, and with a heavy sigh checked started to check his email. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He didn’t bother replying to any of the messages – not yet, at least – but simply skimmed, clicked the forward arrow button taking him to the next message and the next after that and the next after that with all the dullness of someone flicking through channels on TV, who had thousands of shows to choose from but still felt like nothing was on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scott didn’t have thousands of messages to choose from, but he had plenty all the same. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A few were messages from friends inquiring about his well-being, inviting him to dinners or parties or whatever, and these he knew he would respond to later even if it was just to give a polite no. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Some were interview requests about Cordova but there were much less of those now than there were when his book first came out – the news cycle lived on a 24 hour lifespan, sometimes less, and while the Cordova book had been a hit when it was published, hits got soothed much faster than any writer living in the 21</span>
  <span>st</span>
  <span> century and trying to make a career out of it liked. What was yesterday’s “triumph in the dying trend of true investigative journalism”, as </span>
  <em>
    <span>Time</span>
  </em>
  <span> had called Scott’s investigation and subsequent book about it, was today’s old news, all but forgotten except by people who had a particular interest in the subject at hand. </span>
</p>
<p><span>Scott had already been interviewed by the sharks</span> <span>in TV and written reporting and none of them had the desire or need to interview him twice about the same subject, knowing their viewers’ and readers’ attention spans didn’t want to rehash what they’d already heard all about. </span></p>
<p>
  <span>Now the smaller fish wanted to talk about Cordova – subreddits asking him to do AMAs, college papers, bloggers – and Scott’s heart wasn’t in it and so these messages he deleted without answering. He’d spent long enough on the Cordova story and he was ready to move on to newer, hopefully greener, pastures wherever they might be.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And it was those pastures that took up most of Scott’s inbox. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Some of those messages were from names he recognized – bigwigs at papers from the few still published on </span>
  <em>
    <span>actual</span>
  </em>
  <span> paper to the ones that existed solely online, some other journalists though Scott knew his kind had a tendency to keep their story ideas to themselves, sources from all over he’d known for years – but most of them were from names he didn’t. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Everyone had a story or knew one and they wanted someone to tell it, and Scott’s email address wasn’t exactly a secret – couldn’t be, not when his job required frequent contact with people and the difference between being easily available and not was the difference between a story that got written and a story that hit a brick wall before it ever had a word of it typed on a screen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scott waded through them all, hoping to find the </span>
  <em>
    <span>one</span>
  </em>
  <span>, though mostly all he found was dull disinterest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A governor was having an affair with his son’s seventeen year old babysitter and using state funds to treat her, suggested a source that Scott trusted. Aliens were abducting sheep and replacing them with garden gnomes, suggested a name Scott didn’t know but who had the email </span>
  <a href="mailto:thetruthisinherenotoutthere@yahoo.com">
    <em>
      <span>thetruthisinherenotoutthere@yahoo.com</span>
    </em>
  </a>
  <span> which lent little credence to their tip. The head of the largest art gallery on the east coast was turning 100 years old and still didn’t look a day over fifty, said yet another.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was all there, all the things one could write about – political corruption across the world, white collar crimes, puff pieces, outlandish stories about aliens and monsters and all things mythical, and every subject in between, and all of them Scott skimmed over hoping one would catch his eye above all the rest and when they didn’t, he started mentally cataloging the ones that wouldn’t be a total bore to write. That maybe weren’t as electrifying as the Cordova story but that would be worthwhile, expose a truth that needed exposing and garner some interest in the process. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then Scott saw it and he paused.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sharon Falcone. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her name stood out like a beacon – a familiar name only because he knew it well but it was unfamiliar where he saw it now in his messages. Scott had used Sharon as a source for years and was used to hearing back from her, but only after he made the first contact. He couldn’t recall Sharon ever reaching out to him first and never through email, always over the phone and occasionally in person. He hadn’t even known Sharon </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> an email before now, now that he thought about it</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Curious, he clicked the message and read it:</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>McGrath, might have a story for you for a change. Cold case, missing kid. Recently came to my attention but the brass doesn’t think it’s worth pursuing. Weird details about it seem right up your alley so call me. Or don’t. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>-Falcone</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then he read it again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And </span>
  <em>
    <span>again</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Other than the impossibility that Sharon had actually brought a question to him rather than the other way around, the message was also woefully vague which wasn’t like Sharon any more than emailing Scott out of the blue was. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even though he knew very little – </span>
  <em>
    <span>cold case, missing kid, weird details</span>
  </em>
  <span> – Scott could feel his curiosity gripping him by the reins and his fingers itched with the need to call, to ask more, but – </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He shot a look at the clock hanging up on the living room wall and his excitement deflated just a bit. It was still only 5:30 and Sharon was as much of an early riser as Scott was. If he called before quarter to seven, at the absolute </span>
  <em>
    <span>earliest</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she’d chew his ear off about it and he’d be unlikely to get anything from her today and the details he already had from her were so vague there was no way to start investigating before they spoke.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then with a jolt Scott realized he’d already mentally committed to investigating, already made the decision to run with a story – this story he knew less than nothing about – a decision that he’d been putting off for </span>
  <em>
    <span>months</span>
  </em>
  <span> now.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was too early to call Sharon but Scott was wired now, invigorated, and he lived in </span>
  <em>
    <span>New York</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He jumped up from the sofa, grabbed his keys, and headed out the door. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Something would be open at this early, awful hour that it was. Something </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> to be.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>/-----------/</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Scott ended up at a diner called </span>
  <em>
    <span>Aemelia’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> about twenty minutes away from his place and it was here that Nora Halliday came back into his life.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The day was dreary for reasons that weren’t entirely due to the early hour – the sky was a blanket of grey clouds, a steady drizzle sprinkling down from it, and there must have been heavier rain during the night because there were puddles everywhere and the world had a decidedly drenched look to it that only happened when the rain came down hard and long, leaving everything waterlogged with no sun to dry so much as a square of sidewalk out. The scant 5 a.m. light accentuated the grey, wet look of it all and made everything seem faded, a little blurred and not quite there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Aemelia’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> was the first place Scott passed that was open and that didn’t look horribly grubby and so it was into </span>
  <em>
    <span>Aemelia’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> he went. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He opened the door to a blast of warm air, the smell of deep fried everything and Pinesol underneath that, and the sound of a bell jingling over his head. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scott did a peripheral scan of the place and found it decorated like every diner he’d ever seen in a cop show ever – everything looked retro and old, clearly well-worn and often used, but it was also all </span>
  <em>
    <span>clean</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Metal surfaces were dented and scratched, but sparkling; the tile floor would’ve looked out of style even in the seventies, but it shined like it had been scrubbed and waxed on the regular; and the few employees he saw were also all on the post-retiree side of the age line, but their clothes were neat and while they looked bored they didn’t look miserable.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The place was also mostly empty.  Scott’s gaze went from one end of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Aemelia’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> where some kids in tight, slightly disheveled partying clothes shared a plate of bacon strips at a booth while giggling with their heads close together over the table, to the counter where men in even </span>
  <em>
    <span>more</span>
  </em>
  <span> disheveled </span>
  <em>
    <span>suits</span>
  </em>
  <span> held cups of coffee close in their arms, nursing them like a child they wanted to protect or maybe like a drunk would nurse the last scotch a bartender would serve them before they cut them off and sent them home, and then to the other end of the place where his gaze stopped --- </span>
  <em>
    <span>stayed</span>
  </em>
  <span> –- and Scott found himself blinking with surprise at the familiar pair of eyes that looked back at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nora Halliday sat in a booth all to herself, but she’d taken up the table by covering it with so many books it resembled the table of a library more than one at a diner. She’d further laid claim to the seats on either side of her by putting two large bags in both places. She was sitting up straight, legs stretched out across to the seat on the booth across from her, wearing some kind of garishly gold sweater that was about ten sizes too big for her, bleached white jeans, and flip-flops with camo print that she’d paired with black socks with some colorful pink print on them that Scott couldn’t make out the design of from this far away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her pale blonde hair was braided and somehow wrapped around and pinned to the top of her head so that it resembled a crown. Her blue eyes were wide, alert, and alive. There was a smile, broad as anything, full teeth and all, stretched across her face, and Scott could see the surprise on her at seeing him – she’d probably looked up when the bell above the door rang – and the genuine excitement at the prospect. She was thrumming with it, practically vibrating in her seat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It had been over a year since he’d seen her or heard from her and she still looked as lovely as ever and, despite himself, Scott felt his hart jolt sharply in his chest at the sight of her, at the nostalgia and the ache of longing and the realization that he hadn’t even realized he’d missed her so much until this moment when she was right there in front of him</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The rest of the diner seemed to fade out of view as Scott made a bee-line across the room to reach her, never thinking twice of doing anything </span>
  <em>
    <span>but</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He was about three feet away from the table when Nora finally couldn’t take it any more, jumped up and closed the distance between them by launching herself at him, wrapping him up in a bear hug that had all the strength of a sumo wrestler for all that Nora was still a tiny, skinny little thing, and Scott’s arms automatically went around her, squeezing back just as tightly, his nose buried in the side of her head and breathing in the smell of her hair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey there, Bernstein,” he said right in her ear, voice thick with...something, heart still beating its rapid drums in his chest. “Fancy meeting a girl like you in a place like this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nora gave him once last squeeze and then pulled back to hold Scott at arm’s length, her blue eyes looking up at him with a little wonder and a flush spread across her face, both of which made Scott feel more than a little charmed and more than a little relieved that she was as happy to see him as he was to see her. “It’s been awhile, Woodward. Last I saw of </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, you were on tv charming the pants off of Anderson Cooper.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I promise you, his pants stayed on the entire interview,” Scott said solemnly. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Afterwards</span>
  </em>
  <span>, though...” he trailed off suggestively and cracked a grin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nora laughed, the sound bright and loud in the diner’s quiet air, the sound of whatever ice there was between them breaking with ease. She dragged Scott over to her booth and all but shoved him down into the seat across from hers, as though she thought she’d actually </span>
  <em>
    <span>have to</span>
  </em>
  <span> force him to stay. She let go of him – with, what Scott thought (or maybe just </span>
  <em>
    <span>hoped</span>
  </em>
  <span>) was, reluctance – and made her way to the other side of the booth, pushing her bags to the far end so she could slide back in.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She clasped her hands in front of her and leaned forward, looking at Scott with vibrant, wide-eyed delight, the way he thought other people might look at a puppy or a pile of gold.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I read the book,” she said. Surrounded by books as they were right </span>
  <em>
    <span>now</span>
  </em>
  <span>, there was no need for her to specify which book she was talking about. “It was good. It was...</span>
  <em>
    <span>more</span>
  </em>
  <span> than good. Respectful and fair. You did a great job, Woodward. I’m proud of you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The praise hit Scott like a knee to the ribs and the level of flattery he felt at her approval staggered him with surprise. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looked down for a moment, away from her gaze, momentarily </span>
  <em>
    <span>afraid</span>
  </em>
  <span> that she’d see it though he didn’t know why and found himself looking at – of all things – her socks.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The pink shapes on them he’d seen from the door were bats, and if pink bats weren’t strange enough then these bats took it a step further. They had donuts with pink icing on them held in their mouths, little white sprinkles on top of the icing, and the sight of them was so silly, so </span>
  <em>
    <span>odd</span>
  </em>
  <span>, that they served to shave the edge off of Scott’s mood. Made his heartbeat slow a little, made his breathing ease, made him remember he knew Nora and there was nothing to be afraid of from her except perhaps her outrageous sense of style and the possibility that at any moment she’d leave him with another elderly bird in a cage to go with the one she’d already given him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looked back up and said earnestly, “I had a little help with getting there. I couldn’t have written it without you. Or Hopper.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Does that mean we get half the royalties from all the copies you sold?” she asked cheekily.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scott laughed and leaned back in the booth, stretching an arm out across the back of it. He tried to ignore the way Nora’s eyes darted down to take his body in, tried to ignore that he liked to see her do it. Failed miserably on both counts. “I can get you as many signed copies as you want.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nora scoffed at the counter offer and leaned back herself, mimicking his position while Scott mentally restrained himself from mimicking </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span> by checking her out in return the way she had him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They said time made the heart grow fonder and it must have been true because Scott couldn’t remember being this….</span>
  <em>
    <span>affected</span>
  </em>
  <span> by Nora when he last saw her. She’d lived with him, had come to his bed in the middle of the night, had </span>
  <em>
    <span>offered</span>
  </em>
  <span> – and even then he hadn’t been so struck, so </span>
  <em>
    <span>attracted,</span>
  </em>
  <span> because Scott wasn’t so far in denial that he couldn’t recognize blatant attraction for what it was. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He remembered turning her down. Telling her to find another guy, a guy her own age. He remembered feeling alright about doing that, happy for her when she did just as he suggested and seemed happy for it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe the haunting specter of Cordova had simply been too dominant over him at the time, maybe he’d still been hung up on Cynthia the way Nora had once accused him, maybe the line between a girl of nineteen and one of twenty was vivid in some subconscious way in his mind, and maybe it was something else – something that was indiscernible now but might later reveal itself – but the year had made a difference. It felt different. He felt different. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He was different. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Scott wasn’t convinced that it wasn’t for the better. In fact, he hoped that it was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Enough about me, Bernstein, what about you? How have you been lately?” he asked. He gestured with a nod to the book-laden table. “Are you still acting or have you taken up a career as a librarian? Going to open up the first ever little library in a greasy spoon?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nora sat up and pulled her arm down, mimicry done. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>am</span>
  </em>
  <span> still acting, but it’s been slow-going, you know?” She paused, looking at him and seeming to want an actual answer, so Scott dutifully nodded. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> know. A million people came to New York every year with dreams of being an actor or actress, but it was a lucky handful who ever made it big. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Satisfied, she went on, “I’ve had some parts in a few plays but nothing major. Mainly I’ve been working at Healthy Bakes but it’s only part time and I had a lot of free time on my hands and – well, I decided to go to college.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She went quiet again and gazed balefully at him again, checking for a reaction, and seeing that he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>surprised</span>
  </em>
  <span>, rushed to add on, “It’s just online courses with the state community college, so it’s not like – </span>
  <em>
    <span>real</span>
  </em>
  <span> college or anything, I mean --” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was starting to get flustered, face reddening and Scott realized quickly that his surprise had made her self-conscious which wasn’t what he wanted. At all. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That is real college, Nora,” he said genuinely and gave her a reassuring smile. “It counts. It’s – it’s great. It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> great. What are you studying?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nora settled a little and smiled back shyly. “A few things, actually – mostly courses about </span>
  <em>
    <span>writing</span>
  </em>
  <span> plays. There’s one I want to do about set design next semester, but it’s a class you have to take in person. There’s hands on work you have to do that can’t be done online and I’m waiting for the professor to get back to me about the hours it’s happening so I can get my work schedule together with Josie so there’s no overlap.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Whatever surprise Scott had about Nora going to college was eased by this information about why she was going. Nothing about that surprised him. In fact, all of it fit perfectly, as perfectly as two puzzle pieces meeting and snapping together into place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So, I’m sitting across from the next Shakespeare then, I take it?” He grinned, teasing, but there was a serious edge to the question that made it clear he meant every word.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nora’s smile broadened back. “It’s just that it’s not the acting just for the sake of acting that I love, you know? It’s the stories and the characters and all of that – and I want to do be on stage, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but even the actresses that make it big don’t have careers that last forever and I want to make sure I have something that </span>
  <em>
    <span>does</span>
  </em>
  <span> last. I like the acting but I like being involved in other ways, too, and there’s just – </span>
  <em>
    <span>so much</span>
  </em>
  <span> that goes into making a play. I want to do it </span>
  <em>
    <span>all</span>
  </em>
  <span> and I’m going to, Scott. I’m going to do </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her passion was so vivid, her voice so certain, that Scott didn’t doubt for a second that she could and would do anything she set her mind to – a sentiment he shared with her and that caused a new bright flush of pink to spread across her cheeks. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So you’re shelving the donkey farm plan?” he asked. “Where are we going to hold our reunions at </span>
  <em>
    <span>now</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“The donkeys will have to wait,” Nora said with a wistful sigh. “I think I want my own studio. I’ll have a stage and rows of seats and I’ll have my own legion of actors acting out plays that I wrote about Terra Hermosa. Or maybe I’ll buy the farm and build a stage outside, like </span>
  <em>
    <span>Shakespeare In the Park</span>
  </em>
  <span> but it’ll be </span>
  <em>
    <span>Halliday At the Farm</span>
  </em>
  <span> instead.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scott couldn’t help picturing the image – plays about the residents of a nursing home set on a farm – and found himself amused, as charmed by it as he was by Nora talking about it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>So charmed he couldn’t stop himself from asking, forcing himself to sound nonchalant in a way he didn’t actually feel, “And will Jooster be living at the farm with you? He a donkey raising kind of guy?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nora looked confused for a moment, nose wrinkled with it, before her expression cleared and she shook her head. “Jasper was never really into animals. He was allergic to most of them, except reptiles, but his parents never let him get a pet snake or anything and so he didn’t ever become an animal person. I couldn’t picture him on a farm </span>
  <em>
    <span>at all</span>
  </em>
  <span> and besides, we broke up forever ago anyway.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The last part was said as such an afterthought that Scott would’ve missed it if he weren’t paying such attention to every word out of Nora’s mouth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When the knowledge that Jasper was out of the picture registered, Scott felt his gut lurch with hope – hope of </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he berated himself mentally – despite himself.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I thought you said Jasper was a first-class kind of guy.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He was, and he took a first-class flight back to Arizona after a few months,” Nora said with a shrug. She didn’t sound heartbroken by that development in the least and Scott didn’t know why he should be surprised – she’d told him about the guy, fleetingly, more than a year ago. It had been his assumption that it was, or would be, serious because – he realized now – he didn’t know how anyone could be with Nora and not be serious about keeping her. “Anyway, there’s no one now. A few dates here and there but – well, what about you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The sudden question and the sharp look in Nora’s eyes that went with it sent a jolt up Scott’s spine.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Me?” he repeated dumbly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>You</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Nora confirmed. “Are you seeing anyone? Are you still in love with your ex-wife?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A year may have passed and some things had changed but apparently Nora still wielded blunt questions and observations like a meat cleaver.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scott, feeling like an ant under the burning ray of sun filtered through a magnifying glass, was surprised that he didn’t feel cut apart at the questions.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m seeing an older gentleman quite often,” he said, and relished in how it made Nora’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “A little banged up but good for his age. We’re living together so I </span>
  <em>
    <span>think</span>
  </em>
  <span> it’s serious but seeing as he can’t talk, I only have my feelings to go on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nora caught on quickly and was smiling softly by the time he finished. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m sure he loves you </span>
  <em>
    <span>very</span>
  </em>
  <span> much,” she assured him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scott thought the only thing Septimus </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> loved was the pricey bird seed he bought him, but he kept that observation to himself. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And Cynthia?” Nora asked again and – there was something there, some thread in her voice Scott picked up. A not so nonchalant tone, the tone he’d been worried would come through his own voice when </span>
  <em>
    <span>he’d</span>
  </em>
  <span> asked about Jasper. “Still carrying the torch?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Scott said, and found he meant it. There was a part of him that would always care about Cynthia, obviously, but that care was no longer romantic. It no longer addled him or made him feel like a knife twisting in his chest whenever he saw her or was reminded of the fact that she was happy with a man who wasn’t him. “I guess my arms got tired of it. My hands are now totally torch free and Septimus is the only bird taking up my time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A quick flash of satisfaction went across Nora’s face – quick, but not quick enough.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s good,” she said, and then all she did was look at him while he looked straight back, a seemingly yawning space between their eyes full of meaning that Scott knew he and Nora both were able to easily decipher.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was no expectation in that look that Scott could see. Maybe a little hope, a little wanting, a little </span>
  <em>
    <span>wistfulness</span>
  </em>
  <span>, shined through her eyes but most of whatever Nora felt was well-hidden, her face carefully – purposefully – blank.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nora did not expect Scott to do anything with the ball that was in his court. She didn’t expect it, not in a way that she would be </span>
  <em>
    <span>surprised</span>
  </em>
  <span> if he did anything, but in a way that meant quite clearly that she didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>count</span>
  </em>
  <span> on him to do anything. There was no guarantee. The option was there, a fifty-fifty chance of it or less, but Nora was not going to put all of her chips down on one side of it. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She’d laid her own cards down before and Scott had rebuffed her. She’d recovered from that, he thought, since she’d dated Jasper (however temporarily) and other people after, and was doing well but Scott knew that underneath Nora’s passion, under her backbone, under everything that made her strong and enchanting and wonderful, she was soft in a lot of ways. Vulnerable. Scott had hurt her once by turning her away and no matter how much he didn’t want to cause that hurt, no matter how well-intentioned he was in doing it, he knew she wouldn’t put herself out there for him to do it again by making another proclamation of what she wanted of him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The ball was in Scott’s court because that was safer for her. He could take the leap he hadn’t been willing to take over a year ago – or he could rebuff her again. Keep her firmly in the category of friend, wrap up this chance meeting, and then maybe not see her again for another year. Or longer. Or maybe never see her again at all.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The answer should be obvious, of course. The reasons he’d turned Nora down before were still true now – she was still so young, so much younger than he was. She still had her whole life ahead of her, a life of wonderful, amazing things. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Nothing was different, except ---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scott.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scott was different.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And only now was Scott realizing how different, how much a difference that year had made. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Because now Scott could see how much life Nora had ahead of her, could picture her starring in plays and writing them in New York City or on her imaginary farm, but he could also see how much he wanted to be a part of that life with her for however long as she wanted him to be.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Scott could rebuff her, he could walk away. It would, probably, be the right thing to do. The noble thing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Except that Scott didn’t want to walk away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And so he didn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You know, it’s been a long time since you’ve seen Septimus,” he threw out and he didn’t even have to finish his thought before he saw Nora’s blank face give way to a look of slightly surprised, but entirely </span>
  <em>
    <span>thrilled</span>
  </em>
  <span> satisfaction. “And no offense to this place but I think I can make </span>
  <em>
    <span>much</span>
  </em>
  <span> better pancakes at home. If you’re free –“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am,” she blurted out. Nora instantly stood and began gathering her books, shoving them haphazardly into her large bags. “I am </span>
  <em>
    <span>completely</span>
  </em>
  <span> free. Let’s go now.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Well,” Scott started as he stood, too, looking down at Nora who had gathered her things up in record time and was now looking up at him with a pinkened face full of pleased exhilaration, “let’s go then.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She beamed and wound her arm around his and together, they headed out of the diner, Nora pulling him along at a pace that made Scott highly doubt that </span>
  <em>
    <span>pancakes</span>
  </em>
  <span> were what they were headed to his place for.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mentally, he pushed the notion of calling Sharon Falcone today out of his head. Tomorrow, he’d do it tomorrow, he decided. Today would be the first actual day of his post-Cordova life. He’d start it off on a high note and then – </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then he’d climb another mountain where there was nowhere to go but up.</span>
</p>
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